


Eyes that scare the dark

by Psychomanteum (SilentP)



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Airplane Crashes, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Muggle, Animal Attack, Animal Death, Canada, Corpses, M/M, Magical Realism, Major Character Injury, Minor Character Death, Scavenging Animals, Wilderness Survival, Wolves, some gore
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-17
Updated: 2020-02-17
Packaged: 2021-02-27 13:21:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,821
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22367842
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SilentP/pseuds/Psychomanteum
Summary: Remus spent twelve years wondering, one year researching, and nearly two weeks chasing rumors across North America. In the end they’d led him to the airport of Whitehorse, Yukon, waiting on a flight to Mayo. The hope-- and it was a desperate, slim hope-- was that he might find Sirius Black at the end of it.
Relationships: Sirius Black/Remus Lupin
Comments: 21
Kudos: 87
Collections: RS Fireside Tales Vol.2





	Eyes that scare the dark

**Author's Note:**

> I thought this would be 6k. As you can probably tell, it is not that, and I blame the wonderful R/S Fireside Tales for that. Thanks to the mods for putting this together! I had a lot of fun with this challenge. And thanks to J for looking the fic over for me. 
> 
> I was working off of picture prompt four, (linked in the end notes). Inspiration for the title comes from _The Book of Highland Minstrelsy_ as found on the [ “Wolves in Great Britain” Wikipedia page](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolves_in_Great_Britain#Scotland). 
> 
> _The lean and hungry wolf,  
>  With his fangs so sharp and white,  
> His starveling body pinched  
> By the frost of a northern night,  
> And his pitiless eyes that scare the dark  
> With their green and threatening light._

_August 18th_ —

Remus shifted, trying to find a good way to balance his notebook while fishing his mobile out of his pocket. He shook the screen, then added _2:22_ to the top of the page in an untidy scrawl. 

_August 18th_ — _2:22 PM_

_Travel day. Departing Whitehorse for Mayo. Chartered flight with pilot, had an extra seat on a delivery flight. Will either return with him in one day or the North Air flight in three, depending on any further information found in Mayo. Updates to come after arrival._

Writing with his knapsack as a makeshift desk was awkward, it made his handwriting larger and heavier than usual, like there was more to the day’s entry than this simple update. Remus shuffled dispiritedly through the previous days’ pages, all filled with similarly sparse entries, then closed the notebook and tucked it and his biro back away into his bag. That done, he resettled the knapsack on the floor under his feet and glanced around, first out of the window he’d settled by, then toward the airport’s main thoroughfare. 

There was a decent crowd—a recently landed flight must have just coughed up the steady stream of passengers that were moving in small groups towards the luggage retrieval. Remus wondered where they had come from. He hadn’t checked the arrivals board, and if there had been an announcement over the airport speakers, he’d tuned it out. 

He checked his mobile again—2:24—then shoved it back into his pocket. He was meant to be meeting his pilot by this gate at 2:30 or so, but there was no sign of anyone yet. Not that there should be—this was a small plane, much smaller than any of the flights that he’d taken to get to Whitehorse. 

It had taken two weeks of travelling, including a transatlantic flight, to get him here. Two weeks that were the culmination of a year of research, and a few years’ worth of savings—He couldn’t pay for a trip like this on only a year of a teacher’s salary. Tucked into his notebook were notes and photocopied newspaper clippings full of leads that he’d painstakingly investigated and then crossed out again—city after city, town after town, all with little more than a bread crumb trail of rumours. 

It had been a long two weeks. 

A click dragged Remus out of his thoughts. He glanced up to find a man coming through the outside door of the terminal gate. He was dressed in faded denims and wore a trucker hat with some logo that Remus didn’t recognize. His face was red and weathered, and his thin brown hair stuck out in wisps around his ears.

“Lupin?” The man asked, stepping forward. 

Remus rose to his feet and extended his hand. “That’s me,” he said. The man’s hands were thick and rough as he took Remus’s, and he smiled in a way that was friendly enough, though his eyes flickered towards Remus’s face and his tight curls in a puzzled sort of way. Remus just smiled as calmly as he could and returned the handshake firmly. He tried not to think about how ragged he must look with the remnants of stubble on his jaw and a t-shirt wrinkled from two weeks in a suitcase. “You’re the pilot?” 

“That I am. My name’s,” the man said, his voice dropping into a mumble that sounded suspiciously like ‘ _Dung._ ’ “But most people call me Fletcher.” 

“It’s a pleasure,” Remus said. “I’m Remus Lupin. Thanks for agreeing to take me.”

“Course, ‘course!” Fletcher said, beaming. “No trouble, it is. I fly over to Mayo often enough. Right pain it is to get up there, with the Air North flights only going every few days. I pick up passengers now and again, and cargo—no mail, can’t do that, but I’ve done a hospital run or two,” he said. He eyed Remus again. “Not much of a driver, are you?” 

Remus shrugged. “I’m not local. And I’ve not got a license.” 

“What brings you out thataway?” Fletcher asked, looking over at Remus’s luggage. “Needed to get up there in a hurry?” 

“Something like that,” Remus said, shrugging. “I’m visiting a friend.” 

Fletcher looked him over again, glancing between his hair and his face. 

Remus added, “He moved over from England a few years back.” 

The mention of England, or maybe Europe, seemed to settle Fletcher’s mind. Perhaps he thought he’d figured out some kind of box to put Remus in, or maybe he’d decided it was some European thing he’d never figure out. Remus had started getting used to the odd looks his grab-bag of features attracted, up here in sub-Arctic Canada. “Thought I recognized that accent,” Fletcher said, nodding in a thoughtful sort of way. “Bit of a long move for him, isn’t that?” 

“Yes,” Remus said quietly. “It’s been years since I’ve seen him.” He didn’t add that the friend in question didn’t know he was coming, or that Remus didn’t even know whether that friend still lived in Mayo, if he’d ever lived there at all. He just smiled and shrugged. 

“It’s good to see old friends,” Fletcher said, oblivious. “It’s a good little town, Mayo. Small place, y’know? Think they’ve got some good fishing up there. Lovely weather this time of year, nice and warm.” 

Remus nodded along again because it seemed like the right thing to do. “I’ll keep it in mind,” he said, though he didn’t think he would. 

“Well,” Fletcher said, hitching his thumbs in his front pockets. “Ready to load up? I’ve got the cargo all settled; you’ll just have to stow your kit in the back.” 

“Right.” Remus returned to his bags, hoisting the heavy rucksack then pulling the strap for the duffel over his shoulder. “Where do we…” 

“Just out this door,” Fletcher said, gesturing to the one he’d come through. “Plane’s too small for a proper gate, and there’s not much point when it’s just you comin’ on board.” 

“Guess not.” Remus shrugged to hitch the straps of his rucksack higher onto his shoulders, then followed Fletcher out of the building. He took Remus down a small set of stairs, and there the plane was waiting with only a step stool-sized ladder leading up to the door, and that only a few steps tall. Remus wasn’t familiar enough with planes to name it, but it would be the smallest plane he’d ever been in by an impressive margin. 

“There’s my girl,” Fletcher said, patting the side of the plane fondly. “Been flying her for fifteen years, now. Here, give me your things, and I’ll stow them. Don’t need anything from the bags, do you? We won’t be up in the air long, two hours at most.” 

Remus shook his head, and Fletcher led him through the plane’s hatch, which he had to stoop slightly to get through. Inside everything was somewhat cramped, and Remus noted with some nerves that the only seats he could see were up in the cockpit. 

“Where am I sitting?” Remus asked as Fletcher re-emerged from the back of the plane. 

“Just up with me,” Fletcher said, patting the seat. “There’s no need for a co-pilot. Don’t worry, you won’t have to touch anything.” 

“Right,” Remus said. He swallowed his nerves and sat down. Fletcher himself thunked into the pilot’s seat, hitting switches and levers that Remus didn’t quite understand, but that Fletcher seemed completely comfortable with. “We’re all fuelled up, just need to taxi and take off. Shouldn’t take long now—The other flights should be using the South runway.” 

“Right,” Remus muttered again, fumbling for his seatbelt. Fletcher paused in his flipping of switches and, rather belatedly in Remus’s opinion, buckled his own. The plane shuddered to life around them. The hum of the engines was enough to make Remus jump, and he could hear the propellers on the wings spinning to life. 

Fletcher pulled on some sort of headset and started chattering into it, so Remus closed his eyes and tried to focus on his breathing. He felt shaky, but he wanted to ignore it. He was just nervy because of the upcoming flight. He’d always been hesitant about flying, so being in a craft this small, it made sense that he’d be feeling the nerves more. He’d be fine once they were in the air. 

He could try to tell himself that, but Remus stared out of the plane window at the tarmac ahead and knew it wasn’t entirely true. He was running out of leads. He was running out of money and out of time. If Sirius wasn’t in Mayo, Remus didn’t know where else to look. 

Well. It had been this long since Sirius disappeared off into the wilds of North America without a word, and he’d never once tried to reach out. Remus was lucky to have any leads at all. 

Fletcher began to steer them away from the gate, nosing his plane in behind a commercial flight. Remus tried not to think about the way an aircraft of that size could probably run them over. 

He couldn’t begin to guess what would be waiting for him in Mayo. Would Sirius still be there, or would he have vanished to another even more remote town? Would there be a trail to follow if he had? There were places even more isolated than Mayo, Remus knew—Old Crow, further north, which was only accessible by plane and had a population of around two hundred, mostly First Nations. There were plenty of little towns like that, scattered all around Northern Canada, and Remus didn’t have the time or funds left to check them all.

The thing was, he didn’t know what he’d do if Sirius _were_ in Mayo. He couldn’t begin to imagine how he’d react. Would he be happy that Remus tracked him down? Angry? Or, maybe worst of all, would he simply not care? 

For ten years, Remus had told himself that it didn’t matter, that if Sirius had wanted to, he would have reached out. Remus wasn’t the one who left. The entire year leading up to this trip he’d gone back and forth on whether it was the right thing to do. Even now he still didn’t know, and that uncertainty left his stomach just as unsettled as the plane did. 

“Ready?” Fletcher shouted over the sound of the engine. 

Remus jerked, his eyes flicking open. They were in front of the runway, he realized, and the engines were roaring. “Yes,” he said, but tugged on his seatbelt again just to be certain. 

Fletcher nodded, and then, with a jolt and a roar of the engines, they were moving. Remus fought the urge to close his eyes again. His grip on the chair was white-knuckled. He watched as the end of the runway came closer and closer, and then slowly disappeared from view, as the plane’s nose began to ease upward. 

Fletcher glanced over at him and laughed. 

“Not like a 737, is it?” he said. 

Remus bit his lip to keep in a curse. “No,” he said stiffly. “Is the turbulence usual?”

“Oh, this is nothing,” Fletcher said. “There’s a front coming in. It happens now and then. No storms to worry about, but it adds a little bounce to the trip.” 

Remus just pressed his lips together and nodded. He didn’t relax his grip on his chair. Fletcher was right about one thing: this was nothing like riding on one of the big commercial airlines. This was much, much worse. 

Eventually, they evened out, which helped despite the lingering turbulence. About twenty minutes into the flight, they ran into some low clouds, which made Remus tense up all over again. Fletcher didn’t seem worried, though, just began to chatter about the kinds of weather he’d flown through. Remus stared out of the window into the indistinct grey shapes condensing around them, never quite enough to remove visibility altogether, and tried to relax. 

“I’ve flown the route to Mayo hundreds of times,” Fletcher said. “I could probably do it blindfolded.” 

“Will the clouds clear up?” Remus asked. 

Fletcher shrugged. “We’re keeping low,” he responded. “Shouldn’t be a problem while we’re following the valley.” 

It wasn’t entirely comforting, but Remus fell silent rather than distract Fletcher, who started to frown a little as they flew, clenching and unclenching his grip on the plane’s controls. Instead, he stared out through the indistinct grey at the faint green shape of trees below, like little painted matchstick toys. Despite the instability of the small plane, it was almost peaceful up here. The engines were impossible to tune out, but they kept a steady humming that was rather soothing. That, paired with the hazy light of the cloudy afternoon, made it easy to imagine they were travelling over some endless tundra towards the ends of the Earth. 

It made Remus remember the stories he’d read as a child, of children passing through the back of wardrobes or surviving shipwrecks and plane crashes and using their wits to survive until their rescue. 

He pictured Sirius as one of those boys out there in the wilderness, only since it was Yukon, he’d be doing less foraging for coconuts and berries, and a little more constructing shelters out of ice and fighting off bears and wolves. And Sirius would be thirty-three by now, not a plucky boy of twelve as the stories usually called for, unless he was a little more Robinson Crusoe. Maybe that would explain the twelve years without contacting Remus. 

The first sign of him Remus had ever found had been by accident, the kind of accident that could only happen at three in the morning. It had been on the anniversary of the departure, a day Remus usually tried and failed to ignore. He’d been on an insomnia-fueled wiki dive into sled dog racing in Norway and Sweden, which had led him somehow to Alaskan races and the Iditarod, then finally to the website of the Yukon Quest race—and the list of entrants, which included one S. Black. 

It was nothing. It should have been nothing. There had been no pictures to accompany it, no mention of his nation or city of origin, no first name, even. It should have been a dead end from the start. He’d spent the following year trying to tell himself that there were too many ‘if’s involved. It didn’t work. Maybe he should have turned back in Fairbanks, where he’d only found a few people who’d remembered the young man with long, dark hair who’d been a rookie to the race and had dropped out partway through. Maybe he should have given up in Whitehorse, where he’d spent days digging through local newspaper archives where he’d found a blurry photo and a mention that this first-time entrant to the Yukon Quest was establishing a kennel in Mayo, Yukon. Maybe he would reach Mayo, and the trail would only be a person at the general store who remembered “that young man Sirius,” but would regretfully tell Remus that he’d moved on and no one knew where he went. 

Remus knew he would follow it to the end, one way or another. It was insane, but he was here. Maybe this was just getting ready to move on. He just needed to be able to tell himself that he’d tried. 

Next to Remus, Fletcher made a face and rubbed at his chest. “Damn indigestion,” he grumbled. “We’re getting close. Just gotta fly east of Gray Hunter Peak here, and we’ll start coming in to land...” 

“You won’t have trouble landing in this weather?” Remus asked. The clouds had gotten thicker during the short flight, and Remus could see mountains ahead of them, disappearing entirely into the cloud cover. He shifted nervously in his seat, clutching at the arms again. 

“Not at all,” Fletcher said. He was still rubbing his chest, Remus noticed. “You don’t happen to have any antacids, do you?” 

“No,” Remus shook his head. “Sorry.” 

“Eh,” Fletcher shrugged. “Worth a shot.” 

The turbulence was getting bad again, the closer they got to those mountains. Remus kept glancing between the view, which had increasingly poor visibility, and Fletcher. The pilot was sweating, and his breath was coming in harsh pants.

The plane jolted in another bout of turbulence, dropping alarmingly. Remus squeezed the seat so tightly his knuckles went ashen. “Fletcher,” he said, his heart in his mouth, “is everything—” 

With a groan, Fletcher doubled over. One of his hands pressed to his chest, while the other still clutched at the controls. As Remus watched, the controls shifted, and he could feel the plane beginning to tilt to the right, towards the mountains and the ground, which was rising quickly to meet them. 

“Fletcher!” Remus shouted. 

Fletcher didn’t lift his head. He was still clutching desperately at the controls, at his chest, and was gasping convulsively. Remus tried to lean over to grab at the other man, but another stomach-dropping jerk of the plane slammed his head back against the side of his seat and sent his seatbelt digging harshly into his hip. He had to clutch at it to lever himself upright, and when he lifted his head, he choked on a shout. The view from the window was rolling foothills and rising mountains and far, far too close. 

He remembered, in a flash of terrified clarity, the instructions he’d seen in every plane trip for the past two weeks, every flight attendant demonstrating seat belt fastenings and _please store your tray tables and return your seat to an upright position_. He couldn’t remember anything about what to do while the plane was crashing.

The plane jerked again, nose jerking up this time, and Remus flinched forward, curling his head down to his knees and pressing his eyes tightly shut. 

All of his other senses seemed to go into overdrive to compensate. He could smell his sweat and the particular synthetic smell of the chair’s fabric. His heartbeat echoed like a drum in his ears, and he could hear Fletcher’s gasping over the whining of the engine. He imagined he could hear the wind whistling by, that he could feel the plane falling, falling, falling. Was it safe to look up, to see how close the ground was? The longer he waited, the more deadly it must be, and yet not knowing was an agony. 

Fletcher moaned again, a strained rattle of sound that set Remus’s heart racing. He twisted in his seat, trying to see—

The plane gave an awful jerk to the side, that slammed Remus against the armrest and his head forward into his knees. He could feel the pain stabbing through his side, made worse by the seat belt digging into his stomach. He hardly had time to take a breath before the plane slammed forward again, bouncing off something with the terrifying shriek of tearing metal. Remus rattled around in his seat like a mouse in a cat’s jaws as the plane slowly ground to a stop. With one final sputtering whine, the engine died. 

Remus didn’t black out, though it felt like he was about to. His eyes struggled to focus, his ears rang in the sudden silence, or maybe from the way his head had bounced painfully against the console. Every movement felt like it sent knives through his head and chest, and the world still felt unsteady around him, as though they’d never really stopped falling. 

Fletcher’s groaning had stopped. Remus lifted his head, blinking slowly, and saw the pilot slumped forward in his seat. He couldn’t see any blood, but—Fletcher was so still—he wasn’t moaning. He wasn’t _breathing_. 

Remus’s first attempt at movement ended in him collapsing back against the seat, breathing shallowly through the sudden sharp pain in his side. His chest felt like he’d wrapped a vice around it and squeezed too tight. 

Broken ribs, probably. Remus wondered if he would be able to tell if one had punctured a lung. He held himself very still, focusing on his breathing, but the pain faded and his breathing, though still careful, eased. 

His second attempt did not go any better, for it was only when moving to unbuckle himself when he felt the pain in his hand. His fingers ached, and they already looked bruised and swollen. 

When he tried again, he did so much more cautiously, and this time the pain did not take him off-guard. Still, he moved more slowly than he’d have liked—the floor of the plane had tilted, sometime during the crash. The window had cracked, Remus realized with a little thrill of dread, and all he could see through it were trees and branches. Better than dirt, he supposed, but not by much. He had to brace himself against the armrest just to take two shaky steps over to the pilot’s chair.

“Fletcher,” Remus called, his voice shaking. “Fletcher, are you—” 

The man remained still in his seat. Remus could see that his hands had fallen from the controls. There was spittle on his cheeks, and his eyes were open in a glazed, unblinking stare. 

Remus’s breath rattled around in his chest, and he staggered back. “Shite,” he hissed, then darted forward again, reaching for the man’s neck, then his chest. There was no pulse. Remus remembered him clutching at his chest with one hand. He struggled with Fletcher’s seat belt then heaved the man out of his chair and flat onto his back despite the pain it sent through his ribs. Doing his best to ignore his throbbing fingers, he set to CPR. 

It was only when the lack of air made him dizzy that he stumbled back, then fell against the seat, staring at Fletcher’s dead body. 

Remus stared and stared at the man’s open mouth. _He’s dead_ , his brain told him. _I should arrange him properly. I should at least close his eyes._

Instead, when he stood, his body moved away from the cockpit, toward the door of the plane. He watched as his hands fumbled with the lock. Opening the door was a strain that left him woozy and panting shallowly. He had to cling to the door’s edge to step outside, even though the ground was much closer than he’d expected. 

The first thing he saw was the torn stub of the plane wing. It hadn’t sheared off neatly. Half the wing remained attached and was twisted back in a great curl of torn metal. The remaining pieces lay scattered over the torn earth left by the crash. The belly of the plane was hidden by the earth, but Fletcher must have pulled up at the last moment, for the nose wasn’t buried. Limping, Remus followed the edge of the aircraft and discovered that the tail had not survived in much better shape—it was also twisted dramatically, though it had remained completely attached. 

Slowly, Remus looked away from the plane to take in the landscape. There wasn’t much to see. The low clouds had formed a blank grey cover, thick enough that Remus couldn’t tell where the sun was. He couldn’t even see the mountain peak that he knew must be there somewhere, because everything further than thirty feet disappeared into the clouds. The plane must have landed in a small valley among the foothills of the mountain, because the land sloped up on all sides, blocking Remus’s view of the surroundings. 

The plane had left a furrow down one hillside, a deep scar in the thin ground cover of lichen and small plants. Even the trees had been ploughed aside—Remus could imagine one of the branches cracking the glass of the plane windshield and shuddered—for there were snapped and scraped trunks all along the hillside. All of the hills and much of the valley was full of trees, thin and scrubby. None of them rose higher than twenty feet, the inevitable result of poor soil and the short growing season of the lands near the arctic circle. 

It was all utterly featureless. Remus could not remember how the plane might have turned when his eyes were closed. It might have gone entirely off course when Fletcher jerked in his final moments.

Remus was still floating outside of himself, not quite fitting inside of his fingers or his head. He thought of the way the man had gasped in pain and clutched at his chest—heart attack. Fletcher must have had a heart attack, and he had crashed the plane because of it. 

Remus stumbled to the side of the plane, then slid down it, his back pressed against the metal. When the shakes came on, he lowered his head between his knees and fought to keep his breathing even. His eyes burned. His mouth, his lips, felt like something was crawling on them down to his lungs. He pressed a hand over his face and choked on a sob. 

_Breathe, Lupin. Just breathe. You’re not out of this yet._

By the time the tremors died down, Remus felt shaky and weak, and his eyes were itchy and swollen. He felt dried out—completely wrung out. Like there was no emotion left in him to spare. 

The thought of Fletcher’s dead body still resting inside the aeroplane made his skin crawl. He kept one hand pressed against his mouth and tipped his head back against the side of the plane, looking out at the thin scrubby forest that surrounded him. Had it gotten darker, or was it only that the clouds had grown thicker? Remus couldn’t tell but thought it might be both. 

He dug his mobile out of his pocket—it told him that it was five o’clock, but he had no signal, and the battery was almost gone. 

He should have expected it, but it still sent a fresh pang of terror through him, even if he didn’t know what he would have told the operator. _‘My plane has crashed. No, I don’t know where exactly. Somewhere closer to Mayo than Whitehorse. There was a mountain._ ’ Very useful. He clicked off the screen and stored it back in his pocket anyway. Maybe he could use the torch when it got dark. 

Before then, he needed to figure out what to do. 

The flight was a short one. Someone in Mayo would have to notice when they didn’t arrive as expected, or someone in Whitehorse would realize something was wrong when Fletcher didn’t return. Once it got out that they were missing, there would be a search. Remus just had to survive until then. 

Just survive. Right. 

Even if search parties set out this afternoon, it would most likely get dark before any planes could get close enough to see the crash. Would the cloudy weather impact search efforts? It had to. He had to expect it to, and prepare for the worst. 

The worst meant: staying out here for days, with cold weather, possibly rain. And wolves, and bears, and moose, and whatever else lived out in the wilds of the Yukon. 

He had his injuries to contend with, too. His hand still smarted. When he looked down at the fingers, they were properly bruised and swollen up as fat as sausages. He could hardly bend them, but he didn’t think they had broken. His side was still stabbing with pain whenever he breathed too deeply. He slid one hand carefully along it, feeling the edges of what had to be a nasty bruise under his t-shirt. He knew the ribs were broken, and he’d hit his head during the crash. He ran through his birthday and his name and felt up the side of his head, but he couldn’t feel any blood sticky on his forehead or matting down his hair into a mess of tightly curled knots. There was, however, a very tender bump on one side of his forehead. So he possibly had a concussion as well. His head felt fuzzy enough for it. 

He had on a t-shirt, denims, and trainers—nothing helpful while stuck out in the wilderness without heat for an extended period. His duffel had some more clothes in it, but nothing more substantial than a light jacket, and not much food other than a nearly-empty water bottle and a few nutrition bars. 

Fletcher might have something, some sort of emergency kit, but Remus would have to search the plane for it. Remus took a deep breath and let the idea settle into his head. He tried to pretend that he had time to work up to the idea, but he didn’t, not really. He would only have so long. Sunset would come eventually, and with it, a drop in temperatures. It was already a bit cooler out here than a t-shirt could handle. At least it was still summer. He didn’t like the thought of his chances in January. 

There were scavengers out here, he realized. Foxes, and maybe vultures and things. Remus would have to cover Fletcher up sooner than later. 

Slowly, Remus began to push himself to his feet. He stood for a few moments, closing his eyes against a wave of vertigo, then just to breathe. Then he took a few steps forward, careful on the torn earth and avoiding the metal scraps trailing from the wing. Then a few more. Then more, one foot after the other, until he was back by the door of the plane. 

He could still see Fletcher’s torso, his arms splayed awkwardly across the floor where Remus had set him down. He looked away before he could see his face and turned his attention instead towards the back of the plane. 

There was a dividing wall between the storage area and the cockpit. Remus stepped into what could have been a six-person seating area but had instead been converted into what looked to be a cargo hold. Remus spotted his rucksack and duffel secured to one of the shelves. The rest of the cargo consisted of a few boxes and crates. Remus looked through them, but there wasn’t much. One box was full of rifle rounds. Another held packets of batteries. A third had mechanical parts that Remus couldn’t recognize. The fourth, tucked away at the very back, seemed to contain nothing but prescription medications, too many to just be Fletcher’s. Remus backed quickly away from it, and in doing so, caught sight of the red plastic of an emergency kit. Gratefully, he grabbed for it and popped it open. Inside there was a basic first aid kit and one of those crinkly foil thermal blankets, balled up tightly in its packaging. 

Remus settled back on his heels, staring down at the inside of the kit. He hadn’t expected much, but he’d thought surely there would be a compass, or a proper torch, or something. Anything more than this. Even a few granola bars past their best-by date would have been better than nothing. 

But this was what he had. Remus pulled out the thermal blanket and unwrapped it. The package contained two rather than just the one he had expected, and so he took one up to the front. 

Fletcher was unchanged, no matter what some small part of Remus hoped. His eyes had gone dull already, and his face had slackened. Remus clenched his jaw and drew the blanket over Fletcher’s body, tucking it around him while doing his best not to touch any part of the corpse. The foil crinkled under his hands, and Remus turned away. He didn’t think he could linger much longer in the plane, even with the body covered. Briefly, Remus turned his attention toward the console, but if there was anything there—a radio of any sort or anything still working, he couldn’t make it out. So he retreated once more to the back of the plane, where his bags awaited him. 

Remus made unpacking his rucksack stretch out as much as he could, but its contents were just as useless as he remembered. His laptop (dead, thanks to a battery that probably needed replacing). A charger. His notebook with its carefully copied clues. A few photocopies he’d taken of the Whitehorse local paper, where he’d found the blurry picture of Sirius and the few lines about him. His water bottle, with only a few mouthfuls left inside. Two nutrition bars. Some sunblock. A few sets of clothes, none suited for extended periods in the wilderness and the cold. He at least managed to find a single light jumper and a thicker pair of socks, both of which he pulled on immediately. Maybe it was just him, but it already felt like the temperature was dropping. 

Then, for want of something to do more than anything else, Remus re-packed his bag and his duffel, then laid them out against the side of the plane. If he were going to stay in the plane tonight, the back would be better than going up with Fletcher’s body. 

Carefully, he tucked the nutrition bars and the water into his pockets and made his way back outside of the plane. He settled on the side that he was reasonably sure faced west, and tried to resign himself to waiting. 

It was not easy. The adrenaline wore off before too long, and Remus was left feeling the discomforting throbbing in his head. He still had to take shallow breaths to keep his side from hurting, and his fingers ached whenever he moved them, and sometimes even if he didn’t. Remus thought, occasionally, of returning inside of the plane to see if Fletcher had any painkillers in his probably-illegal drug stash or to grab one of his other shirts to use as a cushion, but the thought of having to pass by Fletcher’s covered body kept him out. Instead, he looked out over the forest surrounding him and tried not to check his mobile too often. 

Once, he climbed to the top of one of the surrounding hills, the one the plane had first hit, but although the trees here were not giant, they were thick with undergrowth, and he couldn’t see very far, even at the top. The only thing he could see was more foothills, and those, too, seemed likely to disappear into the clouds. So he’d walked back down to the plane. When lost, stay put: he knew that much. Better to remain by the recognizable crash than to get lost trying to find some sign of civilisation, no matter how close it might be. If there were people nearby, better that they find him. Surely they hadn’t missed the crash. 

Maybe it was the clouds, or perhaps it was the wilderness, but everything was so _quiet_. Remus hadn’t realized how used to the background hum of technology he was until he went without. He was familiar with the quiet—back home, Remus would occasionally take drives without the radio, and he worked in silence where he could, finding music too distracting from his grading—but there was always the hum of tires on the road, or of his refrigerator turning on, or cars out on the street. Here, there was not even the distant hum of a highway that he might use to find his way. 

There was no sound of birds or insects. There wasn’t even the slightest breeze to rustle the branches, despite the turbulence during the flight. Remus hoped that meant there wouldn’t be rain. Maybe it was just the cloudy day that had silenced the birds. He might be too far north for insects. 

It was isolating, and it was eerie, as though Remus was dreaming all of this, and somehow, in this dream, he’d become the last living thing on Earth. He would slip into a trance, almost, staring out at the trees, and then it would break when he shifted slightly or took too deep a breath, and the pain of it brought him spiralling back. 

In the end, his mobile died just as it started to get dark. The last time he’d checked it when the battery was at 2%, it had been edging past nine o’clock, and the light still hadn’t entirely failed. One benefit, he supposed, of being so close to the arctic circle in the summer—fifteen-hour days. At least he would not have to spend quite so long in the cold and the dark. 

He still lingered outside, even as the temperature began to drop. A wind finally began to stir the leaves on the trees and pull up gooseflesh on his arms. Far from being comforting, the sudden sound sent shivers down Remus’s spine. It sounded like whispering, or like something coming closer through the underbrush. He pushed his back to the plane and stared into the brush until his eyes strained in the twilight. 

He ate half of one of his nutrition bars, trying to stamp down the urge to finish it off. He had to make these last. 

Eventually, he stumbled his way back inside the plane. There was no sign of a disturbance inside it, but with a shudder, he hauled the door closed behind him. With one final glance toward the bundle of thermal blanket, he retreated to the back of the plane once more. 

It was even darker in here. With the clouds, there were no stars or moonlight to see by, so he was left instead with only the faint remnants of the sunlight that made it through the porthole windows. He should have been exhausted, considering the darkness and the stupor he’d found himself slipping into before, but sleep escaped him. Maybe it was because he was enclosed again, or because he couldn’t see anything, but he found the darkness kept him awake. He kept straining his eyes to see in the dim light and his ears for any hint of something moving outside. He couldn’t tell what the wind was doing. He thought he heard it rustling the leaves. Then he might imagine he heard something scratching around the sides of the plane. Then it would fall silent again. _It’s nothing_ , he tried to tell himself. _It’s nothing. The door is closed, so even if something is out there, it can’t get in._

Time stretched past him. He kept closing his eyes, then jerking them open at the slightest sound. He pressed his injured fingers against his mouth, hissing at the pain and letting it drive away some of his exhaustion. The darkness seemed to writhe strangely before his eyes, as it got blacker and blacker until there was no light at all. He kept seeing movement in it, slippery and uncertain. 

How long had it been? An hour? Surely not. It had to have been at least two since true night had fallen. He tried to lie down, using his clothing as a pillow and covering himself with the thermal blanket, but changing position made the bump on his head throb. He closed his eyes and counted his breaths, but even then, he could not drift off to sleep. The floor was cold and uncomfortable, and he had to curl up on his side to keep from knocking against any of the crates stuffed back here with him. 

Remus focused on his breathing. He’d suffered from insomnia before, surely this was not much worse. He knew how to deal with it, how to breathe through it until the morning came. He just needed to let himself drift. 

At some point, he found himself with his breath hitching and tears dripping down the end of his nose, as the exhaustion wrung him out. 

He saw Fletcher sitting across from him with dead eyes. “I’m sorry,” Remus whispered, but Fletcher didn’t answer, just stared. His ruddy face had gone grey and waxy. 

Remus closed his eyes again, for a moment or maybe for an hour. When he opened them again, Fletcher had disappeared, and it was Sirius sitting across from him instead. 

He looked like he did in Remus’s memories, or maybe like he did in that blurry photograph. Remus couldn’t quite tell if his face was clean-shaven, or if he had the beard from that image in Whitehorse. He’d never been able to grow a beard when they were twenty. Too young for it—they’d both been so young. His eyes were the same, though—that haunting grey-blue, the kind that could pierce Remus clean through. 

“I came here to look for you,” Remus whispered. Maybe he should apologize, as he had to Fletcher, but the words stuck in his throat. 

“Why?” 

Whatever age he was, Sirius, in his mind, looked tired. Sad, but hopeful. And intent, always so intent.

So Remus said, “Because I still miss you. And it was driving me insane.” 

He lay quietly for a little while and didn’t realize at first when his eyes drifted closed When he opened them again, Sirius was still there. 

“So come find me,” Sirius said. 

Remus shook his head, just barely. “I don’t think that I can,” he whispered into his makeshift pillow.

Sirius leaned forward now, closer than before. “Why not?” he asked. 

“Because,” Remus said. “We crashed. We were so close to Mayo. I thought… but I don’t think I’ll make it.” 

Remus looked up and found Sirius’s eyes boring into his. No matter how ghostly the rest of Sirius was, how faded in Remus’s memory, those eyes Remus could recall in perfect clarity. Sirius leaned forward, and he was close, so much closer than Remus had realized. He could almost imagine Sirius leaning forward to touch him, the gentle pressure trailing from his shoulder down his arm. “Soon, Remus,” he said. “Just stay safe.” 

The next time Remus’s eyes drifted open again, Sirius was gone. 

He heard the scratching again. This time, it was slow, methodical. Heavy. Remus’s heart froze. Bear, maybe. 

Soft footsteps paced the length of the plane, just outside the edges of his hearing. He could hear echoes of snarls, and then, a single, clear howl. 

He could hear it breathing. He could hear it licking its jaws. It was pacing outside. Waiting to get in. He knew it. He had to run, he had to _run_ , but he’d trapped himself inside of the plane, and Remus knew with dreamlike certainty that he would not make it out if he tried. There came a slow, deliberate scratching at the doors. At the windows. He saw gleaming teeth, and glowing yellow eyes, and he knew, he _knew_ , that he would be its next meal. If he moved, if he so much as breathed, he—

Came awake with a jerk, to the barest hint of light coming in through the windows. He was panting and shaking, his shirt stuck to his back with cold sweat. Shivering, Remus sat up in the dull light of the cabin to hunt for his water bottle. 

Something slid off of the thermal blanket and fell next to Remus with a clatter. 

The sound made Remus jump, his heart pounding from the remnants of his dream. He nudged it with his knee, looking down—and saw a pocket knife, sitting on the floor next to him. 

He stared at it for several groggy minutes. He didn’t own one. Had he missed it yesterday, in among the emergency kit? He must have. He picked it up and turned it over in his uninjured hand. It wasn’t a multitool, but a proper knife, the kind of flick knife that folded down into the handle. It was a beautiful handle, black lacquer with a red inlay in the shape of a dog. 

Remus snapped the blade shut and turned his attention towards the windows. It was just barely beginning to get light outside. The clouds had turned into mist overnight, lending even the closest trees a blurred, indistinct grey cast. The world was swallowed by a dim haze. 

He waited until it was properly light out. As he did, he had a few more bites of his nutrition bar and finished off the last swallows of his water. 

He would have to find more, and he knew it. Humans could only survive a few days without it. He couldn’t depend on someone seeing the wreck. Slowly, he unpacked and repacked his rucksack, layering in the warmest of his remaining clothes, the thermal blanket, his water bottle, the remaining nutrition bar, and his notebook — the knife he stowed in his pocket. 

After a moment’s thought, he took the notebook out again. Tearing out a page, he wrote on it, 

_Remus Lupin. I am alive. Went to search for water. Follow the marks on the trees._

And then he waited for the sun to rise. 

It didn’t rise so much as the day eventually drifted into being light enough that Remus could no longer justify staying inside the aircraft. Slowly, he stepped through. He glanced toward the cockpit, but the blanket covering Fletcher had not been disturbed, and Remus hurried past it again, out into the morning. 

It was still chilly, and Remus was thankful for the extra layer he’d added, and for the rucksack sitting against his back. The wind had disappeared again, leaving the woods eerily silent once more. Remus hesitated, thought about waiting a little bit longer. He could still manage for at least a day, right? And it might be better to wait by the plane. Only, his food was limited. The longer he waited, the weaker he would be. Better to do it now, while his strength was up. Thus decided, he turned to put the note just inside the door—

and saw the scratches. 

Thick, heavy lines were carved through the tan paint at the side of the plane, laying bare the metal beneath, all along the door. They had scratched in with enough force that the metal was dented in places.

He whirled around again, his heart in his mouth. There was nothing on the ground, the fresh earth around the plane, no movement in the underbrush—no howling. The whole world was still and silent. 

_Those couldn’t be a bear or wolf, could they?_ Remus looked at both sides of the door. No, they were only on the surroundings, not the door itself. It was probably remnants and dents from Fletcher moving cargo into the plane over the years. Remus wouldn’t have noticed them before. How could he have? He hadn’t thought to look. He’d just been spooked because of his uneasy dreams the night before. If a wolf had been scratching at the door, he would surely have woken up properly. 

With a shiver, Remus pulled the door closed and turned off toward the forest again. Picking a direction—east, he thought, was safest, he could orient himself based on the sun. Then he reached into his pocket, pulled out the knife, and stepped forward into the trees. 

It wasn’t quick or easy, travelling through the underbrush. The land was hilly, the ground was stony, and the trees weren’t tall, so they were packed tightly, and what little space there was between them was filled with low bushes and other brush. Some of it had sharp twigs and thorns that dragged across Remus’s skin, leaving red lines and occasional bloody scratches. He made slow progress until he found some sort of deer track through the undergrowth, and even then it was slow going as he stopped to mark his path with arrows on the trees.

It wasn’t easy to do. The knife was sharp, but the trees either had white bark or were tough and hard to cut. The pines bled sap that gummed up the blade and coated his hands. Cutting a clear mark took effort each time. Remus had to lean his weight onto his palm and press hard with the edge to carve gouges out of the bark, and the effort of pressing his full weight into it made his side stab with pain. He kept gritting his teeth to get through it, which made his head throb. By the time he finished making one, he found himself having to rest for some time and breathe shallowly before he could move on. 

He didn’t think he could feel his ribs shifting, but he always pressed his palm against his side anyway, as though the gesture could hold the bones in place. Then he folded the knife blade away and kept moving. 

It was hard to keep the direction in mind, harder still to stumble over the carpet of leaves and pine needles. The ground was uneven with stones and shallow roots, and Remus had to shuffle along to keep from falling. Occasionally he doubled back to make sure the marks he’d left were still in place, that he wasn’t completely lost. He tried to keep track of the daylight, to estimate how long he had been moving, how long it would take him to make his way back. But the cloud cover was thicker than ever. All he could do was count the hilltops he’d climbed, once the scar of the plane crash was out of view. He couldn’t even tell if he was moving up or down in elevation. Maybe he’d accidentally picked a direction that ran parallel to the mountains, and he’d end up walking a circle around them without meaning to. 

Every time he had to take a break, he would hold his breath and listen for the sound of birds, or insects, or running water. When he made it to the crests of any of the low hills, he tried to look out at the surrounding landscape for gaps in the trees that might hide some sort of lake. He kept to the deer tracks where he could, hoping that they might lead to water. He was not used to hiking like this, but he tried to pace himself. He remembered seeing lakes passing by below them in the plane, so he just had to find one. He walked, and carved marks on the trees, and listened. 

The longer he walked, the more he was aware of the tacky feeling of his tongue inside his mouth, and the empty hollow in his stomach. His headache rattled through his skull. It was worse to see the clouds overhead and the drifts of mist. If it would only rain, he could put out his water bottle and collect some. But he didn’t think he could rely on it. 

Well, maybe he could have taken that chance. But he didn’t think he could take another day of just sitting by the plane and waiting for rain, thinking of Fletcher’s body inside… 

He remembered dreaming of wolves, and he shuddered. 

It was surely afternoon before the winding path he’d found finally approached a gap in the trees and brush. Remus picked up his pace, trying not to hope but hoping anyway. 

It was like stepping into one of those storybook worlds. Remus stumbled to a stop, breath caught, and stared. 

Everything was green and grey and blue as though he’d walked past the bounds of the mortal realm and into a mythical one. The air was still, filled with a mist that hung over the highest branches of the trees. They’d opened up around a lake. The water, too, was still. If it weren’t for the faint sound of water lapping at the rocks of the banks, he might have thought it frozen over into a sheet of ice as clear as glass. There were only a few fallen leaves, scattered on the surface, to interrupt the mirror-like reflections. Remus stared at the dark stones arranged like cobbles, at the deep shadows that were the reflection of trees, and the grey-white of the mist. 

It seemed more like a painting than the real world. 

Then Remus’s dry mouth asserted itself, and he stumbled forward. 

The rocks were uneven under his feet, and he had to take even more care than he had in the woods. He dropped to a crouch, then hesitated. He tried to cup water in his hands, but his fingers throbbed and wouldn’t bend. One hand wasn’t enough to bring much water to his mouth, but he tried anyway. 

It was awkward and messy, and he got a pine needle in his mouth on his first try. Then he couldn’t stop gulping down swallows of water, cold and soothing. It was only when he tipped forward and had to shove his hand wrist-deep in the water to keep from falling over entirely that he drew back. He wiped his mouth on his already-wet sleeve and knelt there, panting slightly. 

Still, there was no sound other than his ragged breathing and the faint lapping of the water. The sunlight had that strange quality to it that made him think it was approaching dusk already. Had he been walking for that long? He couldn’t account for the hours, just that he felt tired and shaky. Was there enough time left in the day for him to make it back before dark? Maybe if he applied the knife, he could come up with some sort of makeshift shelter. 

A whisper of wind disturbed the surface of the lake, drawing ripples across the perfect mirror image. Remus shivered. Maybe if he pushed himself, he could get back before pure darkness fell. He wouldn’t have to stop and search for water, after all. 

He stood, and that was when he saw it. 

The movement was what caught his eye, for it surely could not have been the colour. A grey shadow separated from the water on the far side of the lake and outlined against the misty, dew-covered bank. He saw the pointed ears, the long muzzle, the sleek shape. 

_Wolf_ , he thought. 

He went very still. 

It was just as still as he, all the way on the far side of the water. It was staring at him, he was sure. He could see the pale aspect of its eyes, which he thought might be gold. Wolves, he remembered, often had yellow eyes. He’d had an obsession with them as a child, and some of the facts must have stuck in his brain, to be jarred loose by the unexpected sight. He’d been disappointed that he would never be able to meet one, there being no wolves left in the UK. 

Remus’s pulse rabbited in his throat. He could not look away from those eyes. He remembered the dreams of something scratching outside of the plane. He could hear the lone howl echoing in his ears, he thought. All of the terror of his early morning nightmare flooded back into him. 

When he blinked, the creature was gone. 

Remus let out one shuddering breath, then another. He staggered back, his footing slipping on the rocks until he’d made it to dry land. He found he couldn’t look away from the patch of trees where the creature had disappeared. 

Slowly, he lowered himself to the ground. Fumbling in his pocket, he grabbed for the knife and clutched at it with both hands. 

He watched and waited, his ears straining, his eyes darting over the underbrush around him, but there was nothing. No howling in the distance. No scratch of claws over the stones of the lake. Not even the whisper of the breeze returning. 

Eventually, his legs began to cramp, forcing Remus to move from the stones he’d been standing on toward the drier ground. Slowly, carefully, he found one of the more substantial trees near the water and put his back to it. 

The wet patches on his denims and his sleeve were already cooling him. Remus tried to wring out the cuff, but his success was limited. He couldn’t manoeuvre it with one hand very well, and he was reluctant to let go of the knife. 

He thought of the wolf again, wondered if a lone wolf would hunt humans. He was sure that they usually avoided settlements, but did they avoid people as a whole? He wouldn’t look like its usual prey, but he didn’t know that it was enough of a deterrent to a hungry wolf—he remembered the scratches on the side of the plane, and shuddered. 

“Get a hold of yourself,” he whispered, his voice shaking. It felt like his words were swallowed up by the silence of the lake. Still shaking, he pressed his palm to his forehead and closed his eyes. 

Exhaustion, fear, and a concussion were all getting to him. That was understandable. But he had more immediate concerns to deal with than his mind tricking him into seeing wolves where there were none. Water and shelter. Those were his immediate concerns. Survival. 

He hadn’t been sure before, but now he was confident of it—however long he’d been walking, the light had once more begun to fade. Maybe because the clouds were growing thicker, or because it was edging once more towards night. Whatever the case, Remus didn’t want to miss a marker, or run into a wild animal, because he’d been stumbling through a downpour or the long twilight. 

Remus hefted the pocket knife and started to hunt around the edge of the lake for saplings. It wasn’t easy to cut them down. He sawed at them with the blade, then threw his weight into snapping the remainder of their trunks, which again jarred his ribs. Then he had to drag them back to his slowly growing pile. 

The water was a blessing. Remus filled his bottle and stopped to drink often, taking small sips now that his initial thirst had been quenched, and then kept working. Drinking didn’t do much to cover the growing ache in his stomach, but it helped some. He thought of the remaining nutrition bar in his rucksack but resisted. He would save it for the night, when he’d finished making the shelter. It would be a good reward for carrying through. He was good at denying himself, though usually, the circumstances of it didn’t involve quite so much physical labour. 

By the time he amassed a pile of properly-sized limbs, he thought he’d figured out a way to make them into a proper shelter. One of the trees closer toward the edge of the water had wide-sweeping branches, and there was a hollow of space closer to the trunk. If he used one of those as a support beam, he could dig the branches into the ground and lean them up against the tree. It wouldn’t do much if it rained, but it would be better than nothing. 

He was feeling a little dizzy now, so he sat down and rested his hands on his knees. His hand still throbbed in pain whenever he tried to use it, and his ribs were a constant stabbing sensation. His head felt like a bell being continuously rung, and he couldn’t tell which of the many factors—the exhaustion, the hunger, the lump on his skull—made it worse. He suspected it was all of them. 

He couldn’t tell the time, exactly, but it was edging toward dusk when he finally convinced his aching body to move and start constructing the lean-to. The sky, still fuzzy, was a noticeably darker shade of grey. He’d thought he might be able to tell where the sunset was coming from, but the clouds seemed to be too thick for that, or maybe the trees and the surrounding hills were just a bit too tall. Or he’d managed to go straight east, and there was a mountain to the west, serving as a barrier between him and the setting sun. 

Remus had never considered the falling of the night before, the way it happened in slow stages. He’d never realized how slow and inexorable the falling darkness was. It was even eerier without the stable weight of the plane at his back. It felt like the forest was closing in around him on all sides. Things had seemed more open there. Here, the trees felt like they were hemming him in, scraping at the darkening sky like the clawed fingers of silent, watchful sentinels. Even the open air over the lake felt too close, too ready to swallow him up. 

He pressed himself back against the tree. Already, he’d come to regret his efforts with the shelter. The embrace of the branches that he’d thought would bring him comfort instead felt like blinders as the light faded away. 

There was no one moment when it became night. There was simply—dusk, sliding into twilight, then into darkness so thick he could not even see his hands. If he had to endure many more nights of this, he thought he might go mad. 

Slowly, breathing hard through his nose, he reached his hands out into the inky black in front of him. He flinched when his fingers brushed up against something, then realized it was the rough bark of one of the saplings. He felt his way toward the entrance, leaving his rucksack behind. He kept low to the ground, shuffling his feet and sweeping his arms out in front of him. 

It was still breathtakingly dark beyond the boughs of his safe haven, with the mist of the day replaced by heavy clouds. It was nothing like the city. There, a cloudy night was bright with light pollution, and the sky turned the same mottled purple-black as a fresh bruise. Here it was dark, dark, dark, except for the faint purple blur of what had to be the moon behind the clouds. It was just enough that he could see the edges of the lake and the trees beyond if he squinted. 

Around him, the forest was still silent and empty. Remus shuddered and worked his way back to his tree. Instead of retreating into the shelter, he brought out the thermal tarp and wrapped it around his shoulders, then retrieved his nutrition bar. 

At least it wasn’t meat, he mused as he pulled the crinkling foil away. He wouldn’t attract any predators that way. 

He tucked the knife into his pocket as he ate half the remaining bar then took another sip of his water. The thermal blanket was thin, but it did an excellent job of preserving his body heat. His rucksack provided a decent cushion against the bark of the tree. There was still no breeze, but he could feel the fresh air on his face. It was slightly better than being trapped in the plane with no exit, though he would be just as done in if something came upon him in the night. Maybe, because it was so dark, nothing would be out hunting. 

Remus settled himself firmly against the tree, put one hand on the knife, and steeled himself to wait out another night. 

“Remus.” 

It was a whisper. Remus opened his eyes—when had he closed them in the darkness?—but there was nothing to see, just a faint impression of some presence in front of him. Remus couldn’t decide what it was that made him so sure. There was no sound of breathing, no rustling of clothing, no warmth hovering just above his skin. 

“Remus,” Sirius’s voice said. Remus was very sure that it was Sirius’s voice, a voice that he hadn’t heard in twelve years. “Where are you?” 

Remus breathed a laugh. “By a lake,” he said. “Where are you?” 

He got the impression that Sirius was shaking his head. “Not in Mayo.” 

“No,” Remus laughed again, shaking his head. “No, of course you wouldn’t be. Maybe it’s better like that. I don’t know if I could bear it if I came so close, only to…” 

Remus stopped and swallowed. The not-warmth feeling was hovering over him again. Sirius had once liked to grab his face in both hands when he was being defeatist, and shake him a little. 

“You’ll get there,” Sirius said. “You just have to hang on a little longer.” 

“There’s a wolf out there,” Remus said. “Somewhere. Or maybe I’m hallucinating one. I’m not sure that’s any better. And Fletcher is dead.” 

But he could tell that Sirius wasn’t listening. He often didn’t, when Remus got low, and Sirius got manic. Remus would slump in his seat, and Sirius would pace, and force him into wild promises. He couldn’t see them, but Remus knew those eyes would be watching him just as intently as the wolf had. 

“Just a little longer,” Sirius whispered. 

Remus woke with a flail and a gasp. His side and head were on fire with pain, so overwhelming that it momentarily stole his breath. His wheezing earned him a mouthful of dirt and pine needles. 

Coughing and wiping ineffectually at his mouth with the back of one hand, Remus struggled to orient himself. He must have slumped and collapsed away from the tree at his back while nodding off. The thermal blanket remained wrapped around his legs, but he didn’t move it, even though his face and exposed hands were clammy with cold. Instead, he wrapped his arm around his chest and focused on breathing slowly and shallowly. 

When he opened his eyes, he could make out the outline of his little shelter. Every colour was rendered in greys and silvers, but there was enough light to see by—dawn would be soon if it hadn’t happened already. Remus pushed himself upright, taking stock. 

The air was cold enough to make him wince as he peeled away the thermal blanket. When he checked his pocket, the knife was still there where he’d left it. His bag still held the water bottle and the last half of his nutrition bar. He ignored it, despite the empty feeling of his stomach. Once he’d stuffed the thermal blanket away, he shuffled his way out of the protective branches of his shelter. 

It wasn’t much lighter out by the lake. The heavy clouds had not let up overnight, for the sky was still a solid, uniform grey, so heavy that it swallowed the tops of the tallest trees. The lake was just as still and dark as it had been when Remus first set eyes on it. Mist hovered over the surface in translucent veils, obscuring the far bank. There was dew thick on the sparse plants that coated the edge. Remus’s shoes and trousers were dampened anew when he made his way over and knelt once more at the water’s edge. He dipped his fingers into the water as long as he could stand—it was icy, which felt good against his still-swollen fingers and the rubbed-raw patches left by the knife and his efforts with the saplings the night before.

He pulled them from the water to splash at his face, then filled his water bottle to the brim, took a long drink, then filled it again, doing his best not to get any floating debris into the container. He retreated from the water back toward his shelter and settled back inside it. He would wait until the light was stronger, and then he would find his way back to the plane. It would be safer there. Last night had been okay, but he couldn’t risk another night out in the open, and he didn’t want to risk missing his rescuers. 

If he had to, he would figure out something to do with Fletcher’s body, somewhere to move it. But he hoped it didn’t come to that. 

He shook his head and turned his focus instead on that calm, dark lake, and waited for the light to improve. He’d gotten good at that in just two days, at waiting for the light to change. At letting his mind sit and rest, watching the leaves on the trees and the mist as it hung suspended over the water. The moment it was light enough to see under the thin canopy, he pushed himself to his feet. 

He couldn’t help but glance out over the lake one last time, but no golden eyes were staring at him across it. 

He’d thought it would be an easy journey back to the plane, but it wasn’t. Remus realized his error, soon after he set off: he’d marked his path to the lake, but he hadn’t marked his path back to the plane. 

It seemed stupid, in retrospect. Remus could have used fabric from his clothes or carved a line onto both sides of the trees. Something, anything. He should have thought of it when he was doubling back to check the trail. Instead, he now had to leapfrog his way from one marker to another, making tentative forays out into the woods and peering around trees until he found the next breadcrumb along his path. Just as he had the previous day, he kept stumbling on rocks and slipping on leaves. The dew hadn’t set in so heavily in the woods, but even the dry leaves managed to make him lose traction and stumble. The raw spots on his hands kept getting worse when he had to catch himself against tree trunks. He tugged the sleeves of his jumper down over his palms and grimly added more markers to the backs of the trees. He hoped he wouldn’t have to come to the lake again, but if he didn’t, he wouldn’t get himself lost along the way. 

It mattered less and less what the marks looked like, as long as they were visible. He carved in incomprehensible runes. He made rings that encircled the thin trunks. He cut deep lines with only the barest hint of an arrow to them. The woods were silent around him as he worked, with only the sound of his ragged breathing and trundling footsteps to accompany him. 

It could have been the exhaustion of two nights of poor sleep, or the lack of food, or the need to take shallow breaths lest his side hurt, but Remus had to stop and rest more frequently. He longed to stop moving, to find somewhere to close his eyes and sleep. Truly sleep, and not half-doze the way he had the past two nights. He had been stranded for two days. Three, depending on how he counted it. Once he finished the last of his nutrition bar, he would be officially without food. He didn’t want to think of what to do next. He just wanted to close his eyes until a rescue party arrived. 

The wind picked up again, as Remus caught sight of the plane and the raw earth that lay exposed behind it like some horrible parody of a jet trail. He picked up his pace, feeling the shiver that worked down his spine as cold fingers of air slipped down his shirt. 

Maybe it was the proximity to shelter that made him ignore the way his skin prickled, as he circled the plane, or it was the exhaustion. Or it was the rustling of the leaves that covered any sounds, the smell of damp earth that disguised the weighty tang of iron in his nose, in his open mouth. 

Maybe he should have known. But he did not have the attention to spare for premonition, so it was a shock to him when he rounded the plane to find the wolf standing in the open door. 

He noticed the details first. The sheer size of it—the thing’s head would be taller than his waist — the eyes, pitiless and golden. 

The gory black stains on the grey-brown of its muzzle. The red on its teeth. 

The way it growled, as it finished snapping down the last of its meal. 

Involuntarily, Remus’s eyes tracked past it. He knew what he would see, but it still took his brain a moment to make sense of what his eyes told him, to find the shape amidst the ravaged remains. 

Remus stumbled backwards and tripped on some uneven furrow in the earth. He already knew as he fell that he had done the wrong thing, but he had no chance to correct it. A weight slammed into his front. 

He hit the ground hard. Even with his pack as a cushion, it was enough to drive the air from his lungs. He gasped, aware of the blur of brown-grey above him, pressing him into the dirt. He threw up one hand, reaching, trying to shove the creature’s head away. He’d just found purchase when his fingers burst into blinding pain. 

Something jerked his hand away, or maybe his thrashing pushed the beast’s head aside. Fire raked across his face in agonizing lines. He closed his eyes, or maybe he couldn’t see, maybe—

His face was hot and wet and it hurt it _hurt_ and he couldn’t tell where the pain was coming from, because there was so much, too much—he must have flailed, again, because there was another tearing, crushing agony in his forearm, and he screamed, he screamed. 

He thrashed, desperate instinct driving him to jerk his knees up, to yank at his arm. He screamed again when the teeth sank in deeper. The wolf’s weight was heavy on his chest and thighs. He tried to kick it away as claws and teeth made bloody rags of his shirt. Tried again, and felt his knee catch on something. It was enough to send the wolf rolling, and Remus with it. 

He needed to get away—it hurt, it hurt immensely, and his arm was useless. He tried to lever himself to his feet, but his body gave way underneath him, dropping him once more into the dirt, wheezing uselessly. 

There were snarling and barking coming from nearby. Remus struggled to open his eyes against the pain, to prop himself up, and made out two bodies tumbling over one another in the dirt. Something dark and furry was wrestling with the wolf now. Another of its pack? It didn’t matter. He had to get _away._

Remus’s vision greyed out as he rolled over onto his front. He took great gasping breaths, as he felt something wet trickle down his face. Pressing his wounded arm tightly against his body, he forced himself to his feet, swaying. The two wolves had separated and were slowly circling, growling at each other. Remus remembered the weight of the knife in his pocket. Slowly, trying not to draw any attention, he pulled it out. His every breath was pain. His eyelids felt sticky and heavy with blood. 

The grey wolf edged back towards him, and Remus moved. It whipped its head in his direction on some instinct. Remus saw those bloodied fangs open in a snarl, those yellow eyes, gleaming with hunger—

before the knife sank into the wolf’s bright eye. 

It barely thrashed. Remus jerked away as the wolf collapsed, dizzy with terror. He could not see the stab wound, with the way the wolf had fallen, but he could see the blood, he could see the limp body. Then he couldn’t see anything. 

When he became aware again, it was because of the pain—or maybe the pain was the one thing that he’d always been aware of. There was something tight around his arm, and something pressed heavily against his face, covering his cheek and eye. He tried to pull away, but it only pressed harder. Sound filtered in, slowly. He could hear a voice. 

“Fuck, fuck, just—hold still. I’ve got you.” 

“There’s—wolf,” Remus mumbled. He was lying flat on the dirt, he realized slowly, with his injured arm against his chest. The wounds on his face stung even more with the cloth held to them.

“There was one,” the voice agreed. “You handled that. More than handled it. Bloody hell.” The cloth against his face was briefly removed, then returned. “Remus, I need you to tell me where it hurts.” 

Remus convinced his eye, the one not covered over, to open. He was looking up at a grey sky, and at a man. Pale skin, dark hair, grey, blue-grey eyes—

“You did grow a beard,” Remus heard himself say. 

Sirius laughed in an incredulous bark. “Yeah. Yeah, I grew a beard, that’s what you’re focusing on here.” 

Remus’s eye wanted to close again. He was so tired. But he couldn’t look away from that face. Sirius had grown a beard, and his hair was still long. He was in hiking clothes, and there were more lines in his face than when Remus had last seen him, but his eyes were the same. Remus breathed shallowly. “Face,” he said slowly. “Hand, fingers. Head—think I’ve got a concussion. And some broken ribs.” He took another shallow breath and added, “I came here to find you.” 

Even wild around the edges, Sirius’s laugh seemed to settle something deep in Remus’s bones. “You found me,” Sirius said. Remus felt a hand squeeze at his shoulder. “And your rescue party’s here.”

**Author's Note:**

> 


End file.
